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Television Narrative

Explore the narrative frameworks of classic TV shows like Friends, Seinfeld, and more. Learn about characters, plot development, and storytelling techniques. Gain insights into how TV series depict friendship and community. Discover the impact of episodic narratives, character agency, and time manipulation in creating engaging television stories.

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Television Narrative

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  1. Television Narrative HUM 3085: Television and Popular Culture Spring 2015 Dr. Perdigao February 6-9, 2015

  2. Framing the Narrative • Titles: naming and identities • Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends • Friends are occupational hazards (friends in the workplace): Mary Tyler Moore (1970-1977), M*A*S*H (1972-1983), Taxi (1978-1983), ER (1994-2009), Angel (1999-2004), Scrubs (2001-2010), Entourage (2004-2011), The Office (2005- 2013), Grey’s Anatomy (2005- ), 30 Rock (2006-2013) • Adulthood and community resources: Cheers (1982-1993), Frasier (1993-2004), The Golden Girls (1985-1992), Seinfeld (1990-1998), Sex and the City (1998-2004), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005- ), Community (2009- ?)

  3. Framing the Narrative • Young adulthood and friends: Friends (1994-2004), Will & Grace (1998-2006), How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) • Adolescence, angst, and friendship: My So-Called Life (1994-1995), Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000), Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990-2000), That ’70s Show (1998-2006), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), One Tree Hill (2003-2012), The OC (2003-2007), Gossip Girl (2007-2012), Glee (2009- ), The Vampire Diaries (2009- ), Pretty Little Liars (2010- )

  4. Self-Reflexivity • Episodic narratives • Titles in Friends • “The One Where . . .”

  5. Storytelling 101 • Characters • Agency: “The ability to undertake actions and make choices with narrative consequences” (Mittell 214) • Protagonist • Ensemble • Antagonist

  6. Storytelling 101 • Plot: The way the story is told onscreen, including chronological order, omission of key details, retelling events from multiple perspectives (217) • Nondiegetic materials guide our understanding of the story: musical scores, captions, voiceover narration (217) • Narrative comprehension: how the viewer pieces the story together • Storyworldor diegesis: “consistent universe in which all of the story elements, characters, and events are taking place” (218) Firefly: “the ’verse”

  7. Storytelling 101 • Unrestricted or omniscient narration: “any story material can be presented without regard to what main characters know or experience” (219) Ex: soap operas • Restricted narration: “all story information is filtered through the experiences of one or two main characters” (219) Ex: Dragnet, CSI, House M.D. • Middle ground between the two: Veronica Mars, some police procedurals and some voiceover narrations • Objective narration, subjective narration • Point-of-view shot to show character’s vision or sound to identify what the character is hearing (220)

  8. Interiority • Mental subjectivity: “giving viewers access to a character’s internal thoughts: voiceover narration, dream sequences, flashbacks, and visual fantasies all to take us into the mind of a character” (221) • Direct address: Breaking the fourth wall

  9. Narrative Time • Plot time: Time frame within a narrative, presented onscreen (224) • Screen time: The “temporal framework used in telling and watching the story” (224) • Commercial breaks and episodic scheduling freezes plot time • Example of Buffy the Vampire Slayer—resumes story each fall with summer passing in storyworld, uniting story and screen times (224) • Narrative order • Flashbacks • Boomtown’s play with perspectives, Lost and narrative time (flash-forwards, flashbacks, time travel), 24 and the experiment with real time

  10. Playing with Time • The “Rashomon effect” (1950s Japanese film): multiple subjective flashbacks on one event, different versions of the story • The use of “previouslies”: reminding viewer of plot • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX-BCKutDh0 • BtVS play in Season 5: http://www.theawl.com/2009/12/the-end-of-the-00s-buffy-season-five-episode-22-the-gift-by-dan-kois

  11. Stage Show • Narrative equilibrium and complicating action that ruptures equilibrium or peace • Hollywood films and television programs typically follow a three-act structure: first act presents and disrupts a situation second act prolongs and complicates the disruption third act resolves the conflict and restores equilibrium (Mittell 227)

  12. Tetralogy • However, Michael Newman identifies a four-act structure in the contemporary scripted prime-time serial: “The PTS thus patterns its weekly episodes into structures of problems and solutions so that the central conflict introduced in the beginning of an episode has often been overcome by the end. The standard architecture of the PTS organizes the hour into four acts of roughly equal length, each of which is followed by a commercial break. The first and last acts of a four-act episode correspond to the first and last acts of the three-act Hollywood film. In both media the first act is the set-up and the last act is the resolution. The middle two acts of a television show correspond to the second act of a movie: complication and development. Television dramas introduce problems in the first act and end it with a surprise.” (Newman 21)

  13. Formula Fiction • Miniseries • Anthology series: “each episode offers an independent storyworld” (228); each season offers a different storyworld: The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Tales from the Crypt, American Horror Story, True Detective • Episodic series: consistent storyworld, consistent characters but independent plots in each episode, “requiring little need for consistent sequential viewing or knowledge of story history to comprehend the narrative” (228) • Shared by both situation comedies and dramas (228) • Serial narratives: Daytime soap opera in American television, Latin American telenovelas, and British “kitchen sink” shows (229); by 1980s, in prime time family dramas, crimes shows, and medical dramas

  14. Formula Fiction • Episodic serials: Mixture of serial and episodic forms, “employ narrative arcs, multi-episode plotlines that run across a series but eventually are resolved” (230) • “Two-parter” arc or run throughout entire season or more Example: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, arc over seven seasons; 24 and Curb Your Enthusiasm featuring season-long arcs (230) • Even Seinfeld can be considered an “episodic serial” (23) • Episode typically feature at least two or three different storylines: A plot, B plot, and C plot (231) • Ongoing “runners,” “established issues in the storyworld that rarely trigger explicit narrative events and main plotlines,” oftentimes involving character relationships (231)

  15. On Genre • From literary study to film to television • Narrative structure • Genre conventions (Mittell 235) • Genre cycles—types of shows saturating the airwaves: 1960s spy shows; 1980s prime time serials; 2000s reality series (236) • Genre mixing—hybrid forms (240) • Soap operas—beginnings on radio, press’ account of the genre in the late 1930s; melodrama (241) • Daytime programming targeting female audience • Transitioned to television in the 1950s, expanded from 15 minute radio show to 30 and 60 minute time slots (241)

  16. Adaptation and Revision • “[P]rime time programming has adopted many aspects of the genre’s serial form” (243) • Melrose Place and Party of Five continue cycle through 1990s • Lost analysis—as supernatural thriller, scientific mystery, soap opera in the wilderness, religious fantasy? (Mittell 264)

  17. Hybrids Don’t Just Appear on The Vampire Diaries • Syndication as model of distribution; no centralized schedule or channel identity (Mittell 33) • Formulas • Innovation, imitation, saturation (Mittell 46) • Spin-off: Buffy to Angel • Franchise: Law & Order, CSI • Clones • Recombinants: Roswell=X-Files + Beverly Hills, 90210? (Mittell 46)

  18. Seinfeld, “The Pitch” • Aired September 16, 1992 (season four) • Fiction/reality • Reference to the “parakeet” bit—a joke in Jerry’s act to end an earlier episode (“The Dog”) • Larry David’s neighbor Kenny Kramer objected to having the neighbor named after him

  19. Community • Community and postmodernism • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YanhEVEgkYI • “Competitive Wine Tasting” • Aired April 14, 2011 (season two) • Who’s the Boss? (1984-1992) • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBLy1YvKqi8 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTY-DYz9dg • What’s Happening!! (1976-1979) • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpBhrjfetkk • What’s Happening Now! (1985-1988) • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1jQc9YAH1Y • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f_Vn8tOrMc

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